Earlier today some guy named Steve Crager made a post to Facebook about remembering our uniformed men and women who’s commitment to the defense of our Constitution prevents them from celebrating the holidays with their loved ones. All smart alec comments aside, I have to agree wholeheartedly with this stranger. This year we have retail store employees complaining because they have to go into their urban, or suburban, climate controlled workplaces, on Thanksgiving day, work their 6-8 hours, and then go home to their families. While these folks are busy telling the world how unfair this is, we have other men and women working the same thanksgiving holiday, but they do so in an environment in which anyone they meet might be wanting to kill them, they work in temperature extremes, and live in less than pleasant environments far away from any loved ones. They have n0 guarantee that they will get out of this job alive or in one piece. The amazing thing is that they seem not to complain, they merely fulfill the oath they took to defend our Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Might I suggest that the weenies who work at Walmart and the like need to get a life?

VENOMOUS: Yeah, yeah, yeah – they can fail at any time, for any reason…

ALL (in unison): …or for no reason.

And even as I type this, the fan on the work box is very audibly reminding me that it’s in desperate need of replacement.

May be a bit before I get caught up (read: finally post the long-over PFW recap(s)) – but I found a blurb from this column (dealing with pet peeves) this morning and had to repost.

Below the fold. Go click it – it’s that damn good.

1. The Over-Sensitivity of Everyone

Allow me to explain. This year was filled with celebrities making comments and then apologizing for them when someone was offended. Not a week goes by now where a mainstream or even pseudo celeb doesn’t make controversial comments. Inevitably there will be someone who didn’t like it and when that happens, the public bands together like never before and demands that the person issue a formal apology.

When did our society become so thin-skinned? Can nobody say anything anymore without us reacting like petulant, whiny children? We have become so over-sensitive that we demand apologies at a moment’s notice and then accept them at face value.

Most of the celebs who apologize are merely doing so to avoid damaging their reputation. But we believe them regardless even though the apologize aren’t genuine in the least. I’m not saying that we should dismiss every controversial comment and I’m not saying that celebs should never apologize, but I do think this pattern happens at an alarming rate these days and it’s more than a little ridiculous.

Every misunderstood exchange now makes headlines. Take…mmm everything Nicki Minaj says for example. Recently Steven Tyler made some comments about the quality of her judging on American Idol and it was actually misconstrued as racist. Tyler of course said he was sorry even though he didn’t do anything wrong.

James Gunn, who is directing Guardians of the Galaxy, made some controversial blog posts in 2011. It offended women and gays, among others. He of course spoke out and apologized for his comments. Here’s the thing, they were about fictional superhero characters. He said himself it was meant to be satirical and funny, but that didn’t stop every organization under the sun from coming forward and yelling about how offensive his BLOG POSTS were. Should he have written what he did? No, it was in bad taste. But did stupid comments about fictional people really warrant such anger and hatred in the media? Certain groups were even calling for him to be removed as director of the aforementioned film.

News stories like this go down all the time now. Where did this trend start? Who knows? It could have been any number of situations in the past. Can we not take a joke anymore? Can we not brush a comment off our shoulder? Apparently not. We need to piss and moan about everything.

The fact is people sometimes say dumb things and make mistakes. That is the way life works. But we also take things to heart too often now. We have become so thin-skinned and delicate that it’s perplexing why we don’t just burst apart at the slightest touch.

Damn straight. Amen & amen.

Props to Chad Webb. This needed to be said.

And said again, as oft as it takes to drive it through the fecal matter passing for grey matter in some folks’ putrified noggins.

It helps, though, if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer set about 1024x768 1280x1024 with your Favorites window activated on the left deactivated. (At least until I can get a better handle on how WordPress works.)